Operating oil and gas wells in neighborhoods exposes residents to air, noise, and water pollution. Racially marginalized people have disproportionately high exposure to wells and their health may be more impacted with exposure to wells. However, the processes that led to these disparities are not well understood. We can use data from historical maps to get a better understanding of how environmental injustices have come about.
In a study published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, my colleagues and I investigated whether racially discriminatory maps made by the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s were associated with higher exposure to oil and gas wells. Neighborhoods that HOLC officials considered most “desirable” received a grade of A and were shaded green on HOLC maps; grade B neighborhoods were described as “still desirable” and shaded blue; C-graded neighborhoods (“definitely declining”) were shaded yellow; and D-graded neighborhoods (“hazardous”) were shaded red (i.e., redlined). You can learn more about these maps from the University of Richmond’s Mapping Inequality Project. In our study, we found that in similar neighborhoods that received different HOLC grades, the neighborhoods with worse grades had significantly more wells. The density of wells in redlined neighborhoods was two times higher than the density in “desirable” neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s still have persistent health and social inequities, partly due to ongoing pollution from oil wells and other sources.
Use the map to explore the data for environmental justice, redlining, and oil and gas wells.